Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Sunny Wednesday

Oh good heavens, look at the date. It feels like it has been simply ages since I posted here. I guess it has been more than a week and I do try, at least once a week, to get back here. We are so loving the Olympics, aren't you? And we are lucky that we have Canadian television on our cable system, so we get their coverage, as well as ours. (dare I say, I think most of the time, it is much better. At least their commentators don't believe they have to fill every second of air time with talk - but sometimes you can just watch and listen to what is going on.) All these eager young people - and a few of we oldsters - out there just doing their darndest. I think it is so great! But enough of that.

This has been a week of patience, which is NOT one of my strongest skills. I started the little quilt for the youngest grandaughter. I was doing very simple outlining of the squares with the pictures on them. But try as I might the backing kept scrunching up on me. I repinned multiple times. I must have taken all the stiching out 6 times and nothing I could do would seem to improve it. In the end, with the advice of some other quilters we decided the problem was the batting. It was a perfectly reputable brand, but somehow it just didn't like what I was doing. I must have re-threaded the machine 15+ times, I cleaned it, brushed it, blew it out, changed needles, changed thread and still had to have my top tension about '8' and it still pulled to the back and the backing all scrunched up. So what can you do? Take it all out and replace the batting and voila - it is just terrific and what I wanted.

So now just to bind it and we're all set. That then leads to the resurrection of older granddaughter's quilt which I started and then put nicely into a bin and haven't worked on for several months. You've seen this, but here it is again - about to have a new lease on life:

That then leaves one more "grand" to attend to - and I came across this wonderful panel for him. I won't do anything more than put it on a frame to hang in his room. He is moving away from Thomas the Tank Engine to airplanes, so this is the perfect decor item:

I finally got around to getting a lamp shade for the marvelous brass lamp I found at the church rummage sale (a year ago!): [It is so cute with its spools of thread]

A fabulous new (to me) book, by Maaike Bakker. I really just love it and want to make several of the things she has included in here. Turns out I have another of her books called Cups and Saucers.

With hopes that the seam-ripper can be put away for a while, I remain yours truly.

Seattle Time

Netherlands

About Me

Retired from state government and have not regretted a minute. I quilt, embroider, sew and just love playing with various textiles. i adore my 5 grandchildren and love to spend time with them. My other passion is travel, as often as I can manage it.